"Damn it, Sparks," he complained, "I thought I was doin' the right thing when I fired Slops, but—"
"You were," I told him. "By chucking that grease-ball off the ship you saved fourteen lives. The crew. They were planning on either mutiny or murder, they didn't care which, if they had to eat one more dish of that goo."
"But," he continued worriedly, "in another hour we throw lugs for Earth. And we don't have no cook. What the blue space are we goin' to do?"
Our First Mate, Lancelot Biggs, had entered as the skipper was talking. Now he offered, helpfully, "I'll ask Slops to come back if you want me to, Captain. I saw him at the Palace Bar—"
"No!" said the Cap and I in the same breath.
Biggs looked hurt. His wobbly Adam's-apple bobbed in his throat like an unswallowed orange. And he defended, "Well, after all, tapioca's good for you! It contains valuable food elements that—"
"Shut up!" howled Cap Hanson. He wasn't in a mood to take advice from anybody, and especially Lancelot Biggs. Perhaps that was because our recent "transmuting trip," in the course of which we had attempted to turn lead jars to platinum by exposure to cosmic radiation, had failed. The Corporation had carpeted Cap for that, and Cap was sore at Biggs because the whole thing had been Biggs' idea in the beginning. "I'll murder the guy who even mentions that—that stuff!"
Mr. Biggs said aggrievedly, "I was only trying to be helpful."
"You're as much help," the skipper told him caustically, "as fins on a dicky-bird's chest. Now, git out of here! G'wan! Git!"
Our lanky first mate turned and started to leave the turret. And then, suddenly—